What this game costs you — in money and in time
Star ratings tell you if a game is good. They don't tell you what it will cost to keep playing, or whether it ever ends. We publish both, with the reasoning shown.
Raid: Shadow Legends
Pressure
092
To ending
— — —
No scripted ending — live service
Every figure has a source
Monetization data comes from the publisher's own patch notes, store pages and published odds — or we say plainly that no official figure exists.
Rated by year, not once
Free-to-play games change their monetization after launch — sometimes under public pressure. A rating from two years ago can be wrong today, so ratings carry a year.
Money and time together
A cheap game that never ends can cost you more than an expensive one that does. Most review sites answer one question. We publish both next to each other.
Recently rated
EA Sports FC Ultimate Team
A game you buy at full price that then sells you randomized player packs — and wipes your entire squad every twelve months so the cycle starts over.
Open EA Sports FC Ultimate TeamPressure
088
To ending
— — —
No scripted ending — live service
Clash Royale
A competitive card game where card levels decide matches and cards arrive randomly — but where, unusually, the publisher actually posts its own prices.
Open Clash RoyalePressure
072
To ending
— — —
No scripted ending — live service
Warframe
Free-to-play where every weapon and character can genuinely be earned without paying — the money buys time, inventory space and cosmetics instead.
Open WarframePressure
035
To ending
— — —
No scripted ending — live service
Stardew Valley
Bought once, with nothing for sale inside it and no paid expansions — and unusually for a game with no ending pressure, it does have a real narrative conclusion.
Open Stardew ValleyPressure
000
To ending
052hrs
Scripted ending exists
Hollow Knight
One purchase, four expansions given away free, and multiple real endings around 27 hours in — a zero that stayed a zero even after the game became a hit.
Open Hollow KnightPressure
000
To ending
027hrs
Scripted ending exists
Diablo Immortal
A free action RPG where the honest answer to "what does it cost to finish" is that no single number covers it — public estimates for a fully optimized build span from about $100,000 to more than $500,000, depending on which layer of the gem system you count.
Open Diablo ImmortalPressure
098
To ending
— — —
No scripted ending — live service
Candy Crush Saga
A free match-3 puzzle game with no gacha and no loot boxes — just a life timer and a short, fixed price list for skipping the wait, published right on the App Store page.
Open Candy Crush SagaPressure
055
To ending
— — —
No scripted ending — live service
Fortnite
Free to download and free to be fully competitive in — the money goes exclusively toward looking different, not playing better.
Open FortnitePressure
020
To ending
— — —
No scripted ending — live service
Hades
One purchase, a real ending reachable in about a day's worth of play, and nothing else to buy — the roguelike answer to what Portal is for shooters.
Open HadesPressure
000
To ending
022hrs
Scripted ending exists
Genshin Impact
A free open-world action RPG funded entirely by randomized character pulls — the game itself never ends, and neither does the spending opportunity.
Open Genshin ImpactPressure
078
To ending
— — —
No scripted ending — live service
Portal
Bought once, no purchases inside it, and over in an evening. The clean opposite case to a live-service game, useful as a baseline for what zero monetization pressure actually looks like.
Open PortalPressure
000
To ending
003hrs
Scripted ending exists
Explainers
The game pages score one game each. This one is about what “cost” even means.
“How much does this game cost” is four questions
The price of entry, the price to reach the ending, the price to stay competitive, and the price to finish the collection. Publishers answer the first one. For the other three the honest answer is sometimes that nobody knows — including us.